EHUD BANAI

The BeginningEhud Banai was born in Jerusalem, 1953, to a family of actors and musicians. He grew up in Ramat Gan, near the city of Tel Aviv. On the radio he discovered the rock music of the sixties, and the Arabic music. It all melted in his soul and influenced his music over the years.

The GuitarAfter completing his army service, Ehud took his guitar and traveled in Europe for a year. Wandering around, without any money, he started playing in the tunnels London`s underground. At this point in time he also started playing the harmonica as well. In London he saw many concerts of his favorite artists such as Sandy Danny, Cat Stevens and Jethro Tull. There he made his decision to finally become a musician.

Upon his returned to Israel, Ehud went to live in Rosh Pina, a settlement in the Upper Galilee. At this same period of time Ehud discovered Indian and the Persian music, which deeply influenced him, as they reminded him of the poetic songs from the Synagogue that he loved so much.

At the end of the 70`s he returned to the city and started writing songs. His first songs did not seem to him to be mature enough and so he did not do anything with them.

The EightiesIn 1982 he released a song called "A Yiddishe Rastaman", but this received poor airplay. Ehud continued writing and recording sketches on his tape recorder, but none of the record companies or producers that he approached showed any interest.

With distress and frustration, Ehud was about to give up his musical aspiration, but the support of his wife Odelia and his father Yaakov sustained him to continue. In 1984, at the age 32 he entered the DB Studios and recorded the song "Ir Miklat" (City of Refuge). The song was a huge success on the radio;

In 1987 his debut album was released, "Ehud Banai and the Refugees", produced by Yossi Eliphant. A year later "The Refugees" performed in New York and San Francisco and received great reviews in "The New York Times".

Since ThenSince then Ehud Banai released 10 additional albums and one book. He has written music for theatre and the cinema, and was awarded twice the Israeli Oscar for his music scores.

Ehud has performed as the warm up singer for shows of Bob Dylan and John Martin, ,played harmonica on some songs of Chava Alberstein. He was in charge of the musical production for the arabic album "Hela" by George Saman and Salem darwish.

Ehud Banai tours quite a lot with his band around isreal and sometimes outside of Israel. There has been a huge interest around his concerts which attract a diverse crowd of both the young, old, religious and secular. Every concert is a one-time celebration.